


Baby, What a Big Surprise

by westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M, Humor, Post Bartlett Administration, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-02-14
Updated: 2003-02-14
Packaged: 2019-05-15 11:04:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14789315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist/pseuds/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist
Summary: "Josh knew his wife very, very well. And something was up."  A fun and fluffy story set a year and a half into their marriage, near the end of Bartlet's second term.





	Baby, What a Big Surprise

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

*DING*

Donna had brought the egg timer from the kitchen into the bathroom with her, so that she'd know precisely when the three minutes were up. She sat on the turned-down toilet seat, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, and when the dial wound its way back down to zero, she took a deep breath, and stood up.

She walked over to the sink, and reached down to pick up the thin plastic wand from the counter.

And then she raised her eyes to her reflection in the mirror, and watched an enormous smile spread over her face.

*********

She was acting weird.

Josh knew his wife very, very well. And something was up. For as long as he'd known her, she had been a morning person. For years, she mocked him with her perky, shiny-happy early-morning good mood.  She'd sail into the West Wing, gorgeous, caffeinated, and ready to tackle the world, while he struggled to defog his brain. And since the night when he finally couldn't take it anymore and just kissed her brainless up against his office door, he'd been lucky enough to be there, right next to her in bed, when she woke up. And every morning since, no matter how late they got home from work, no matter how busy they'd been in bed the night before, she woke up precisely one minute before the alarm went off, eyes wide open and ready to greet the day.

It was unnatural. It was inhuman.

It was so *Donna.* And he loved that about her.

So it was disconcerting, at best, for him to have to shake her awake every morning over the past week. He'd had to pull and push her into the shower, and make sure she wore matching shoes when they left the townhouse at 6am. He wasn't used to being the more awake of the two of them first thing in the morning.

But that wasn't the weirdest thing.

The mood swings. Oh, dear god, the mood swings. She was up, she was down. She yelled, she cried, she laughed through her tears, and then veered off into angry again at the drop of a hat. Each night on their way home from work, she made him stop at the supermarket for a new roll of chocolate chip cookie dough batter. One night, she needed the chocolate so bad, she ate three spoonfuls of the raw dough before finally getting a batch into the oven. He'd never seen PMS like this before. He was almost afraid to talk to her, because whenever he did? He didn't come close to saying the right thing. The one time he tried to ask her what was going on, he was afraid, from the look in her eyes, that he'd be sleeping on the couch for the foreseeable future.

So while he was worried about the fact that Donna had called in sick that day, he was also hoping that a mental health day would work its magic on her. Or that nature would just take its course already, so that life could go back to normal.

And so it was with a weary sigh that Josh pushed his key into the front door of their home at the end of the day. He had all his deflector shields up, and his warning system on high alert, because he had no idea what he was coming home to.

He stepped into the foyer, dropped his shoulder bag, and called out as he began unbuttoning his long coat. "Donna? Where are y-"

And that was all he got out before, out of nowhere, Donna came flying around the corner from the living room, and plastered herself to him, greeting him with a deep kiss that had his eyebrows arching in surprise and certain other parts of him arching with interest.

"Hi," she breathed, smiling against his lips as she dug her fingers into his necktie to pull it free for him. "How was your day?"

"Ummm, good. You, ah, feeling better?" Josh asked, curiously tilting his head back a bit to get a good look at her and see if the mood was real, or if Sybil was going to make an appearance.

"I'm *great,* Joshua," she said, confusing him further as she immediately pulled him by the hand into their dining room. He noticed, with interest and a bemused look on his face, that she had set the table using their wedding china and heavy silverware that she'd inherited from her grandmother. She also had one red rose in a vase, surrounded by what seemed, to his untrained eye, to be *way* too much baby's breath.

"Donna? What's going on? What's up with the…"

But she didn't give him a chance to finish. She pulled him over to his usual chair, and pushed him into it, draping a linen napkin over his lap at almost the same time. She was moving at the warp speed she had once claimed to not possess.

Josh just sat very, very quietly, and watched her with amused and confused eyes as she bounced around the table, lighting the tall taper candles that stood proudly in her heirloom candlesticks. *Man, if this is the calm before the storm, I might have to sleep in another *state* tonight, let alone on the couch,* he thought with small amounts of alarm.

"Honey? Why don't you sit down and tell me what's going on," Josh said, trying to sound patient and supportive and not freaked out, or like he was trying to kiss her ass. He'd tried placating her a little too much the night before and she'd all but handed his own ass to him. Tonight, however, Donna simply smiled and dropped a kiss on the top of his head as she hurried past him, behind his chair. As she sailed out of the room, she yelled, over her shoulder, "I was feeling domestic, so I made dinner! Salad's up first."

"Ahh-kay," Josh said, sitting stock-still and still afraid to say too much, lest he draw Ms. Hyde forth from beneath Ms. Jekyll's seemingly chipper façade.

He could hear her puttering in the kitchen, and just as he was about to ask if he could help, she yelled, "Oh, I forgot! I made a mix CD today. Can you pop it in? It's on top of the stereo. It'll be perfect mood music to go with our dinner."

With an interested "Hmm," Josh got up and crossed to the stereo, extracted the blank-looking disk from its case, and popped it into the player.

He sat back down just as Chicago's familiar and funky beats poured from the speakers, and he couldn't help but smile.

"Hey," he said, as Donna sailed into the room with two plates full of salad. "You remembered. I told you that I like this song."

"Of course I remembered, Josh. You told me, once, that the lyrics described how you felt about me," she said, giving him a small, enigmatic smile as she put his salad down in front of him. "A girl doesn't forget something like that." She let her hand trail across his shoulders, and through the hair at the back of his neck, and then she leaned in as if to kiss him. All of a sudden, however, with her lips an inch away from his own, she jumped back, saying, "Ooops! Dressing!" and left the room to go get it. Josh's "Donna Weird-O-Meter" went off again, but as she walked out, Donna tossed a happy look back at him and sang him the chorus of the song with a smile on her lips: "Baby, what a big surprise...right before my very eyes..."

Josh watched her sail off, and heard her singing along with the rest of the song as she looked for salad dressing in the fridge. A wave of love for her washed over him and made his heart hurt. It happened all the time, now that he'd stopped having to hide his feelings for her. Once he'd let his guard down a year and a half ago, the barricades couldn't go back up; he was, from that moment on, defenseless against the power of his feelings for her. At least once a day, she gave him a smile, or made him laugh, or nagged him with a random statistic, or whispered something naughty to him when she passed him the halls of the Wing…and it happened. A punch of emotion would hit him square in the gut, and he'd fall in love with her all over again. So his eyes were full of his heart when she came back into the room shaking a glass bottle of Italian dressing.

Donna caught his expression as she came into the room, and it made her heart skip a beat. With a smile, she sat at her own seat, to his right, and dug in to her salad. Josh now looked down at his plate…and noticed something…well, odd. He was expecting the usual - iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, croutons, cucumbers, maybe some red onion. Donna had apparently been experimenting at the store, however, because he had a plate filled with…well, diminutive produce.  Those chubby carrots that they sell by the bag, and the little tiny ears of corn that he was sure were a genetic mutation - they overpowered the plate. And there were also those really small peas - why in the hell were there peas on his salad? - and tiny onions, and weird dark green leaves that looked like they came out of an unweeded backyard. He looked up at her with a confused look on his face.

"Donna, are we, ummm…" And then he stopped speaking, because he still wasn't entirely sure that Donna wouldn't snap on him again. And he was enjoying the relative calm they were experiencing. So instead of asking "Are the Lilliputians coming to dinner?" like he wanted to, he simply smiled at her and said, "Pass the dressing," and got busy eating the salad, and nudging the peas to the sides of his plate and hoping she wouldn't notice.

As he dug in, he started to ask her about her day, but then the next song kicked in on the CD player. He smiled again as the Four Tops came blaring out of the speakers. "'Baby, I Need Your Lovin','" Josh said, happy to have identified the song correctly even before the lyrics began. "Another sentiment I can agree with," he said, flashing her the dimples as he continued to eat around the peas on his plate.

"So tell me what went on today," Donna asked, folding her hands in her lap and waiting for Josh to finish this first course. She was enjoying watching him pretending to eat the baby peas, and wondered if he'd guess that she put them on there just to torment him.

"Well, let's just say my day started off bad, and quickly went downhill from there," Josh said, launching into a description of the crisis waiting for him at his desk when he arrived that morning. One part of his brain noted the next song to come over the speakers:  "Baby Love" by the Supremes. He smiled as he remembered driving in the car with his dad as a young boy, listening to his father sing along to the Supremes on the radio.

Josh brought his full attention back to Donna, and continued telling her about his day. Once she had decided that he'd eaten as much of the salad as she could expect, she rose to clear their plates, and bring in the main course. Josh kept talking, letting his voice rise so that she could hear him around the corner.

"So then Leo, for reasons passing understanding, decided to give me the most ridiculous assignme…Uhhh, Donna, what the…?" His eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hairline as he saw what was on the plates she carried into the living room.

"Well, I was really craving ribs," she said, putting down a steaming plate full of them in front of her place at the table. "In fact, I've been singing that Chili's song all day, you know, 'I want my baby-back, baby-back, baby-back…Chili's…Baby Back Riiiibs," she sang, laughing, and watching his eyes. "But you don't like pork.  So I just made them for me, and grilled you a steak," she said, putting his plate down in front of him. Along with the steak were a pile of miniature potatoes and…what looked like miniature artichokes.

*Artichokes?*

"Honey, did they have some sort of weird sale at the store today?" he asked, tentatively, using his fork to poke at the artichoke, as if it might rear up and attack him if he didn't prod it into submission.

Donna frowned a bit, putting Josh's sensors on high alert. "No. Why? Don't you like…"

"YES!" Josh almost yelled, and then, catching himself, he quieted his voice. "It looks great. I'm very…yes. I like it all. Even the peas," he said, cocking an eyebrow at her, and catching the guilty look on her face as she burst into laughter, busted at her own game. "It's just…you know. You're usually not much of a rib girl, is all," he said, his eyes growing large at the sight of the rack of bones on her plate.

"Well, you know, like I said, I just had a craving," she replied innocently, as she ripped a rib off of the rack and dug into it with gusto.

Just as Josh was about to respond, the next song clicked over on the CD player. He figured he was in for another oldies song…so his surprise was written all over his face when a loud, pumping beat came out of the speakers behind him.

"Donna?"

"Mmmph?" She had a face full of ribs at the moment, so she answered him more with her eyes than anything else.

"Is that…Is this Sheena Easton?"

Donna laughed as she wiped her hands on a napkin, and reached over to grab a bottle of wine from the corner of the table. She refilled Josh's glass, but not her own. He was going to comment on that, but she was carrying on about the music. "I thought it was appropriate, today, with me taking a mental health day," she said, a grin tugging at the corners of her mouth as she began to sing along with mock amounts of enthusiasm. "My baby takes the morning train…He works from nine to five, and then…he takes another home again, to find me waitin' for him…"

"Where in the *hell* did you find a Sheena Easton song?" he asked, shaking his head at her, and forgetting, momentarily, about asking her why she wasn't drinking any wine. Probably because it didn't have chocolate in it, he thought to himself. He was surprised she was just drinking water, and not Yoo-Hoo or hot cocoa or something else that would soothe the savage PMS beast.

"You can find just about anything on the internet, Joshua," she said, snarking back at him. "If you actually learned how to use a computer, perhaps you'd know that."

"That's what I have my *new* assistant for," he said, smiling smugly at her. "Since the old one went and fell in love with me and had to be given that promotion she was so overdue for. Believe me," he said, giving her a hungry look, "I didn't want to let her go." And then he smiled evilly as he added, "She was damn good at typing my emails."

"Awww, and here I was thinking that you never learned how to use the computer, so that you'd have to sit close to me and read over my shoulder all those years when you wanted me and couldn't have me," she said, with honey in her voice.

"Well, that was just a nice side benefit," he said, his eyes sparkling at her. "Now, it's just laziness."

"No doubt," Donna said. She thought for a moment, and then, cryptically, she said, "Speaking of which…" And No Doubt's song "Hey Baby!" came blaring out of the stereo, making Josh jump.

"God, Donna, we're going to blow a speaker!" he said, laughing a bit as she stood to turn the volume down a bit. She ran a finger across the back of his neck as she passed him, sending a cascading wave of goosebumps along the surface of his body.

"How many more courses?" Josh asked with a sexy growl, grabbing her hand as she passed and pressing a seductive, hot kiss to the inside of her wrist. "I could be persuaded to get horizontal with you if you keep that up."

"If you finish your artichokes like a good boy, Joshua, we can talk," she said, sitting back down and laughing as he grumbled about having to eat it. "They're chock full of viatmins. It'll give you stamina," she said, wagging her eyebrows at him.

"Yeah, yeah," he said, stabbing the tiny green bud with his fork, inspecting it closely, and then forcing it into his mouth so that he could just get it over with. "I'm not the one not able to drag his sorry butt out of bed in the morning," he said, cocking an eyebrow at her and transferring one of the artichokes to her plate. "So eat up. It'll give you stamina," he parroted back to her, making her laugh.

"So, tell me about the rest of the day," she said, once she'd gotten her breath back. "Did you talk to McCullough about the farm subsidies bill?"

"Yeah...what a scene that was," Josh said, shaking his head as he told her about the last meeting of his day. As he began describing how he masterfully got the Senator on board with the Administration's position, one part of his brain heard the next song on the mix CD.

"Okay, now, when you said that this was 'mood music,' Donna..."

"Yes?" she asked, innocently, as she sipped at her goblet of water.

"You didn't tell me the mood was going to be 'hip-hop dance party.'  What the hell is this?"

Donna tried really, really hard not to laugh. With as straight a face as she could muster, she said, "It's Sir Mix-a-Lot, Josh! Come on. Everybody knows this song!"

Josh listened for a moment, his face scrunched into displeasure. "*Sir* Mix-a-lot? Who the hell knighted this guy...is he even British?"

Donna nearly snarfed water through her nose, she laughed so abruptly at him. Anything written or recorded after 1980 was, in Josh's opinion, not worth listening to, so she enjoyed tormenting him with music sure to put him over the edge. She watched with delight as he heard the song's chorus, and a perplexed look came over his face. "'Baby Got Back?' Got back from where? Clearly, he's a nobleman *and* a grammarian," Josh snarked, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. Then Josh listened some more, and, shock rolling across his face, he asked, "Is he...is he talking about women's butts?"

Donna was positively *weeping* with laughter now, and running her fingers under her eyes to catch the tears as they poured out. "Josh, you really need to step into the 21st century now and then," she laughed, dabbing at her eyes with her napkin. "That was priceless. Wait until I tell Charlie about this. He's going to start plying you with rap and hip-hop albums to round out your musical education."

Josh was still half-listening in horror to the song, and was thankful that it was ending. "I can't even imagine what's next," he said, looking at her like she'd lost her mind. *This was her idea of mood music?*

"Oh, I don't know, Josh," she said, standing to clear their plates. "I bet if you thought about it, you'd be able to make a good guess as to what's coming next."

As she headed back into the kitchen, the next song clicked over, and a young woman's voice, electronically doctored, growled out "Oh baby, baby," a number of times.

Donna sailed back in, and raised her eyebrows at Josh, expectantly.  "Britney Spears," he answered, shaking his head some more. "And no, I really would never have guessed that that was next, and yes, I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone that I knew that this was

'Hit me Baby One More Time' just from the intro. I have a rep as a person with musical tastes to uphold."

"You have a rep as a fuddy-duddy to break out of," Donna corrected, laughing at him. "Okay, Carson Daly, time for dessert."

"Carson who? Who the hell is…um, Donna? What the hell is that?"

"Dessert," Donna said, simply. She tried once again to suppress a smile as she watched confusion and small amounts of alarm cross over Josh's face. "What?"

"Ummm, okay," Josh said, trying to get his equilibrium back. He'd swung between thinking she was insane and back to normal all night long. Now, he was back to wondering if she'd hit her head at some point that day. Normally, dessert was fruit, or ice cream, or cookies…but tonight, he was looking down at a Baby Ruth candy bar.

*She must be craving chocolate so bad, she's hoping that she can have mine as well,* he thought with a confused but supportive smile. "Baby Ruth. That's...different."

"I thought we'd try something new. I was tired of chocolate-chip cookies."

"I’ll just bet," Josh muttered as he pulled the plastic wrap off the candy bar.

"What's that, Josh?"

"Nothing," he said, shooting her a self-preserving smile. He noticed her watching him closely, so he took a big bite for her benefit. "Mmm. Chocolately," he said, with his mouth full of caramel and nougat and nuts.

"Well, I slaved away all day baking them, so I'm glad you're enjoying it," she joked as she rose again.

Josh looked quizzically at her. "Where are you going? There can't be another course after this...I'm stuffed."

"Nooo, I…I forgot something upstairs," she said, giving him another enigmatic, almost wistful smile. "I'll be right back. Stay right there," she added as she left the room.

Josh sat back in his chair, and surveyed the room. She'd gone to so much trouble; he was touched by all she had done for him on her day off. He was weirded out by a lot of the trouble she'd gone to, sure, but it was wonderful of her, just the same. Well, except for the baby peas and baby artichokes, which he was sure she just added to make him...

*Baby peas and baby artichoke,* he thought, interrupting his own thought processes.

Just as his brain starting churning, the last song on the CD began to play.

It was softer, and quieter than the last few songs had been. There weren't any words. He realized, after a moment, that what he was hearing was a lullabye. It was "Rock-a-Bye Baby."

*Rock-a-bye Baby.*

Josh blinked once.

*Baby. Baby peas and baby artichoke.*

Josh grabbed the edges of the table as his mind raced through the meal he'd just eaten. *On my salad. Baby Carrots.  Those…those…those baby corns. And what the hell do they call that lettuce?* he thought as his brain moved faster than his inner monologue. *Baby greens.  Tiny baby potatoes with my steak...wait. That wasn't a baby steak,* he thought, his pounding heart calming for a moment as he looked up at the ceiling, towards where Donna was now. *But Donna had...baby back ribs.* Now he pushed back from the table, and ran out of the room as he headed for the stairs. *Baby Ruth bars for dessert. And there was that forest of baby's breath on the table.* He started taking the stairs two at a time, as he tried cataloging all the songs she'd put on the CD. * 'Hit Me *Baby* One More Time.' 'Baby Love.'  'Baby I Need Your Lovin.'* Josh whirled into their bedroom, calling her name, and he poked his head into their bathroom - but she wasn't there. His mind ran through the titles of the rest of the songs that she had played for him tonight, and his heart was practically pounding out of his chest now. He pushed open the door to their joint office - no Donna. He dashed back across the hall to their guest bedroom - empty.

He pulled up short, and started to call for her again, but stopped mid-way through her name, when he realized that there was one room left that he hadn't looked in yet. He walked slowly to the end of the hall, and pushed open the door to the one room they hadn't decorated yet. They'd specifically left this one empty...until they were ready for it.

He drew a sharp intake of breath at what he saw. The almost-completely empty room was lit by small votive candles sitting on the windowsills; they'd left those there when they moved in. But there was something new in the room. Donna had hung a clothesline, from side wall to side wall, across the center of the room. And hanging at eye-level, right in front of him as he stood in the doorway, was an incredibly small, impossibly soft pale-yellow onesie.  *Baby pajamas,* his spinning brain registered. There was a tag hanging from the top button, tied with ribbon.

Josh took a step into the room, and reached out with a shaking hand to read the card:

> _____________
> 
> Took you long enough!  
> You're going to be a dad.  
> We're going to have a family.  
> I love you...I'm pregnant.
> 
> ______________

Josh let out an involuntary "Oh, God," and he pulled the sleeper free from the clothespins. And finally, he heard Donna behind him. With tears in his eyes, he turned, and saw her smiling at him. Without a word, he stepped to her, and covered her mouth with his own, his hands caressing her head, her face, her neck, her jaw; and then he stepped back, looked down at her stomach, and back up at her again.

"Are you sure?" he whispered hoarsely.

"Yes," she answered simply, trying not to cry.

"Are you okay?" he asked as he pulled her in again, and pulled her head down to rest on his chest. He cast his emotion-filled eyes up to heaven, said the quickest prayer of thanks that he could, with the promise of a longer one later.

Donna smiled against his neck. "Yes. We're fine," she said, loving the sound of overwhelmed happiness that escaped from his throat at her words. Josh just leaned weakly against the wall, and held her against him.

Josh let one hand wander down her body, and let it rest against her abdomen. Donna covered his hand with her own.

"I love you so much," he murmured into her hair.

"I love you too, Josh."

They stood, holding onto each other, and imagining how the room, and their lives, would look in a few months' time.

Finally, Josh pulled her back, so he could look in her eyes. With a smile on his lips, he started kissing her face...her forehead, her nose, her eyelids, her cheeks, her jaw, and finally honing in on her lips. And finally, kissing her deeply, he murmured her name.

"Yes?"

"Just one more question."

"Yes, we can still have sex."

He smiled as he kissed his way down her neck. "Okay, just two more questions."

Donna laughed. "What's the other one?"

Josh straightened up, and with a worried look, asked, "Are we going to have to eat like that for the next nine months?"

************

the end.


End file.
